I'm becoming convinced that the main reason behind the consistent association between 20th Century actually existing socialism and famine is state monopoly superprofits and not Hayekian calculational chaos.
-
Show this thread
-
If a corporation is big enough it can be a price maker, instead of a price taker at the whims of the market. A central planning state has the same dynamic only to a much greater degree.
1 reply 0 retweets 3 likesShow this thread -
Ultimately then, the errors of actually existing socialism are far more ironic than the calculation problem implies. The exploitation of surplus necessary to achieve these profits is far greater under state capitalism than it ever would be under market capitalism.
1 reply 1 retweet 4 likesShow this thread -
The perfect example is the grain confiscation undertaken by the Soviet Union to fund industrialization. The calculation argument can't explain this, but if you consider the state as a profit seeking monopoly it's obvious in the extreme.
1 reply 0 retweets 1 likeShow this thread -
It also explains why life was shitty in actually existing socialist states, but at the same time they largely didn't economically collapse to the degree expected by a Hayekian explanation, but were withered away due to political reforms (because life was shitty).
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likesShow this thread -
The competition that occurs in a (competitive) market system means that most productive entities cannot extract maximum profits because they would be undercut.
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likesShow this thread -
Monopolies that take advantage of scale economies can achieve superprofits for the simple reason that there's no alternative. They can thereby set prices to a much greater degree than regular firms. This is textbook modern neoclassical synthesis economics.
1 reply 0 retweets 1 likeShow this thread -
A state that acts as an economic entity is just one step further up, and it has an extra advantage in being able to put down competitors through force. It will therefore tend towards collecting the greatest amount of rent it can without inspiring major revolt.
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likesShow this thread -
The crux of the irony here is that although superprofits are mainstream economics, they originate in Marxist analysis.
1 reply 0 retweets 1 likeShow this thread -
This wasn't lost on Stalin, whose remarks can be summed up as: "Yes, but I'm doing it ironically!"pic.twitter.com/5WqHjP8cnc
2 replies 0 retweets 3 likesShow this thread
"I was doing an irony" Jospeh Stalin
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.
